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Okay, a friend of mine picked this guitar up for $450 yesterday. It's in pretty okay shape, except for a few obvious things that need fixing. He loves old beat up guitars and isn't interested in any kind of immaculate restoration rather he just wants it playable. So I've got a few questions...

First, the guitar had been converted to a lefty. The person who did this filled the original slot with light colored wood. My inclination is to fill the lefty slot with a piece of rosewood and then re-cut the slot to revert it to a right handed guitar. The new (old) slot should get rid of most of that blond wood, however the bridge looks like its Brazillian rosewood and is really grainy, so even if I use Rosewood to fill the slot I think it will still stand out. Taking into consideration the work of filling, re-cutting, the cosmetic difference, and how much will have been done to this bridge does it make the most sense to just replace the bridge altogether?


Next, there's a crack that runs from the bridge along the pickguard and treble side of the fret board all the way to the neck block. It's caused a weird table for lack of a better term to the radius of the top between the bridge and the sound hole and the repair seems a little overkill. There are two dark wood blocks between the braces acting as cleats/reinforcements and one smaller spruce one. It seems like maybe the original repairman couldn't get the cracks closed. Maybe? I don't know. I feel like getting those blocks out and the cracks cleated properly can only be a good thing, but then again with the way the top is maybe its too late now?




Then we have a broken headstock. This seems pretty textbook, however there is a lot of glue gooped all over it. The guy that sold the guitar to my friend said its water soluble glue and that it started to come off with some thinner. Also there is a big void where the pieces don't touch anymore in the middle of the break on the front of the headstock. It seems like if I can get the glue off there is a lot of surface area to ensure a good glue joint, but I'm not sure what to do with that void.



Finally there is a crack in the back that appears to have been repaired and seems to be stable, however its not flush. And even though it doesn't move at all its caused a gap under the brace inside. Are there any tricks for getting old glue out of a crack like that so I can close it up properly?


Anyway, that's a lot I know. But any help on any of those issues would be greatly appreciated.

I have had more than an number of the ladder braced LG's in my shop, they can sound good. Emphasis on the word "can". So here's my thoughts pertinent to your question.



I would highly recommend filling and recutting. But I would not follow the original slot, almost every one of these that I've had in my shop had very poor intonation. This is one from a few months ago. The original bridge is on the right, my replacement on the left.



The intonation was extremely out from the factory. So bear in mind that the original saddle slot might not be ideal. I'd take the time to really check the intonation and cut a saddle slot that is truly in tune as possible. And if you had some slivers of leftover wood I would highly recommend using a sharpie to darken them. I've done it on more than one occasion, and with the saddle and strings installed you will likely not be able to see it very well at all. There's other ways to hide the wood but that's honestly the simplest one.



You could definitely try removing those blocks. But that's a pretty dead area of the top. I'd check to see if they're actually glued well to the top. If they're not glued in well just remove them and replace with something more appropriate. Check that the top braces haven't come loose and are causing some of the issues with the deformity. Once the braces are good to go then I'd definitely want to cleat/reinforce those open cracks I see in the pictures.



So this is tough because of the missing material. I would honestly want some serious reinforcement on that headstock. Either a backstrap overlay, or a face overlay, or both. Actually I'd probably want both for this case. I would not want to use splines, definitely go for a full flat overlay. I know that a member here a while back put up some excellent pictures of his method for doing this on a 12 string headstock. Maybe they can chime in?



Depending on the glue, I've used a soldering iron and wet cloth as a "spot steamer" to help soften glue in cases like this. Steam the crack a bit and perhaps run an 8 gauge string through there to break the glue bond. Sometimes it'll just "pop" apart with the steam. The string trick I've used a few times on repairs where I needed to realign the cracked portions of wood, it'll "cut" the glue out and help open the crack a bit.

Your biggest thing is going to be that headstock. I'll see if I can find the pictures I referenced of the overlay work.

Yeah I was wondering about that, but I'd really rather not lose the patina on the headstock. But maybe there's nothing to help that if we want a structurally sound guitar?

I've seen Brian Howard save the logo of a 60s ES335 (I think) with some creative sawing/chiseling. I think he replaced the neck on that one and wanted to preserve the original logo.

But I'll be honest, I think this is one of the cases where it's more important that the guitar be structurally sound than perfectly vintage. I'm sure that there's a way to restore the logo but it'll probably just need to be replaced.

Dan has pretty well covered the bases, but I'll add a couple of comments. Interesting I just replaced the bridge on a 1963'ish LG-1. The owner told me it was a j-45 (which I doubted but thats how I headed a question here

viewtopic.php?f=10137&t=51212

I'll add that when the guitar was finished I kept it and played if for a few days. Funky old guitar, had that boxy bluey sound that I associate with ladder bracing. Certainly not a "pretty" or complex sounding guitar, remember that these were bargin student models when they were new.

Whether you fill and reroute the existing saddle or make a new one could go either way, but be sure to get the slot in the right place. Routing a saddle slot on the guitar takes some serious tooling up - I love the rig that David Collins has but unfortunately all I have is the StewMac setup with a dremel. The dremel is too small but I haven't yet broken down an bought the right router for this. Doing multiple passes with a plunge start with the dremel runs the risk of making the slot sloppy. The one thing going for it on my LG was that I fit an over sized blank to the slot. And unlike the original I actually did a generic compensation on it. One thing I see on your that was the same as mine is a pretty chewed up bridge plate - plan to replace or overlay that while you are working on the bridge.

No comments on the top crack. I would say if its stable, leave it. However if its HHG then it should come apart and you can start over. Same thing with the back crack that doesn't line up - if its hide you can probably fix it, if not you'll probably just make it worse.

I might be the member who Dan is referring to about the head repair. I did a 12 string that had previously been "fixed" with some epoxy that didn't correctly harden - I was able to get most of it to soften with denatured alcohol and then repeated cleaning with little dentist tools. It had not broken thru the head plate so I didn't have alignment issues but it made the clean up much harder. In theory a good wood glue joint should be as strong as the parent wood and this is kind of like the scarf joints I use on heads, but just to be sure I put a piece of carbon fiber over the glue seam on the back with slow set epoxy, then I grafted a back strap over the whole mess.

In your case I would get every bit of the old glue out of there and repair with either HHG or AR. I would either try to remove the old head plate so you could possible salvage the logo, however Gibson decals are available. If it was pearl I would definitely try to save it. Plane the head down and put a new head plate on it, you can also plane the back and put a back strap. Gibson head plates were painted black and with the dark burst on this you should be able to hide your work.

I looked for the old thread on fixing the 12 string but didn't immediately find it. If you want some pictures I can e-mail or PM them to you. I did most of the work with a Safe-T-Planer in a drill press, it is awkward as hell to try to hold a guitar while you plane the neck. If you happen to decide to take the neck off then do the head at that time.

I can see a lot of hours in this and several things that will be kind of shaky. When I worked on mine it seemed like the going price for pretty nice ones was $1000-1500. You are going to put a ton of work into this and it won't be anywhere close. I think its worth doing the work for experience, but maybe not for value to the guitar. And it may not be the tone monster that you would hope for in an old Gibbie.

Bad head breaks.... yep I've done some of those. Here are some relevant articles from my blog that sow different approaches to these type things....
https://howardguitars.blogspot.com/2015/01/les-paul-ressurection.html
https://howardguitars.blogspot.com/2017/10/new-neck-for-old-friend_13.html
https://howardguitars.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-bondo-cutaway-or-why-i-hate-bondo.html

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Brian, there are some very creative people out there. I don't feel so bad about figuring out how to fix mine now thanks.

Just to add, Brian is one of the few luthiers I refer people to when they need something that is beyond my skillset or my wheelhouse. You can take his methods to the bank and come back with change.

Anyway, back to your repair.

Many humble thanks sir......

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

If it were my project I would replace the bridge. Would look much better and be more structurally stable. These bridges aren't too hard to make.

I agree with Gil's recommendation. That bridge has already been chopped up once, I would make a new one. BRW blanks are not hard to find.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Any tips on where to look? I'm in Canada, so getting rosewood can sometimes be a little trickier...

Good point, don't know where to get BRW in Canada but surely some of our Canadian friends would know? I would send you a bank but I suppose it's illegal.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

But it could make you feel like an outlaw. Jesse James the luthier!

And we all know what happened to Jesse James

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I'm finally getting around to dealing with the broken head stock on this guitar. I'll be making a back strap for the head stock, but it occurs to me that all mahogany's are not equal. I bought some African mahogany from the local wood supplier, but its much lighter in color and pinker than what's showing on this broken head stock. Is it safe to assume that this neck is Honduran Mahogany, and that's what I should look for? The local supplier said they had Honduran in their computer and so they should be able to source some for me...

Yes, it is more likely to be Honduran.

With all the poorly done previous repairs, you should get some De-Glue Goo. It dissolves aliphatic resin glues without heat.

Thanks for the tip Barry. I'm gonna pick that stuff up for sure. It's okay for finishes?

I have scraped and scratched most of that previous glue off already, but a short cut for the future would be nice.

It will not harm finishes.

I would be tempted to keep that bridge. It sounds like your client might be the type of person that would appreciate having the tell tail signs of the history of that guitar, let's just call it 'mojo.' But you could always ask. You might want to try De-Glue Goo to remove the old water based glue.

I'm leaning towards that too. This instrument has a story, might as well let it show.

So it glued up okay. There was an awful lot of wood missing and blunted from spending years in pieces, so I am going to go ahead with a back strap and new face plate. I think rather than wrestling the guitar into a safe-t planer I'll use my Dremel on a router base to remove the material.

Before I do though, I need some tips on matching the color of the neck. I've looked through Dan Erlewine's book and couldn't find anything on this particular finish. I'm assuming its a dark pore filler with a brown toner? Also would a vinyl sealer be necessary here? I did manage to finally track some nitro down in Canada.

Those blocks inside are to keep the neck from folding up into the guitar. They should be way smaller and made of light wood (spruce). Oh wait, then they would just be cleats.

I have to admit that I fixed a friends Early 70's Gibson with some small spruce braces from the neck block to the first brace and from that brace out into the wood of the top on both sides of the crack. The guitar was made with that horrible experimental glue, the kind that makes dark lines on the top. They seemed to have not used enough glue on this guitar. The neck was folding right into the guitar and I just wanted to fix it once and be done. The guitar wasn't worth a new top with proper glue. I only put in a weight of wood equal to two pencils, and it is still holding.

Orville forgive me, for I have sinned.

All done!

It was actually done a couple weeks ago, but tuning up for the last time one of the tuning buttons crumbled.

I'll do better with the color match next time.

Not amazing sounding when I lay into it with a pick, but fingerstyle this guitar comes alive!

Looks good! How's the intonation with the saddle as is?